Modding external usb harddrive power source problem

i no i should of put this in the bondo section but i forgot. anyways i just made a section on a 5.2'' drive space where i can plug in my external hard drive. This is useful to me as i need it for college but i do not have alot of room for clutter. I made the cage and did all correct holes, my hard drive plugs straight in the front of the pc but i have no power, accept if i run the dc addapter through the pc, which i do not want to do in any circumstance as this will be inconvient, does anyone know of a solution to maybe connect from hard drive to psu or other. thanks

 

hi there, can you give me the voltage / power outputs listed on the current DC supply then i should be able to give you some help

or a pic where the writing is ledgable will do

 

iv'e tried taking a photo but you cannot see the writting so ill tell you. it is output:10.0-13.5v - 2.5amax25wmax

there is a little bar thing that shows:
10v 11v 12v 13.5v
2.0a

 

excellent. well seeing as its 12V and its not to high powered, your internal power supply should have no problems supplying the power.

do you have a multimeter?

 

no i don't, and also i'm not excellent at electronics but i learn quick i thought there might be an adapter or summit

 

there wont be a molex(psu connector) to which ever external DC connector you have avaible to buy, however there very easy to make.

all we need to do is-

assess weather it is the inside or the outside of the connector that is currently +VE (using the multimeter)

cut the current cable off of the supply and then put some power throught the wires from a power source such as a battery. you can then find which of the wires(based on what u found out above) is supposed to be +VE (again using the multimeter)

then you solder the wire you found to be +VE to the 12volt line on a molex connector and the other wire to the ground on the same molex connector.

then you will have a correctly wired supply for your external USB drive, powered from your internal powersupply

 

thanks alot all i need now is a multimeter, i dont no where i'm going to get one from maybe i can find one to borrow i aslo need an addition dc adapter for the hard drive, is there any other way of testing also which is 12volt on the psu and which is ground? im guessing 12 volt is red and ground is black.

 

its like this=

YELLOW is 12+ve
Black is Ground
Black is Ground
RED is 5+ve

 

cheers

 

ive solved the problem i was looking around on ebay and i saw a usb power cable which is excatly what ou said powers anything from hard drivess to external dvd-rw ect thanks alot though mate

 

ok that cable did'nt work but i tried the way you described and it works. but when i connect the correct cables together the usb---/---power the hard drive lights come on both red and green were as usualy with the 3 pin power supply only red comes on untill it reads then the green will flash. not only this but the computer does not pick up the hdd thanks

 

hmm theres a couple of possibilitys

1. that cable you got from ebay has broken the drive in some way

2. you havent got the correct polarity going into the drive

appart from that we have already assessed that the drive will be having the correct voltage input so the above are the only things it realy could be

hope this helps

 

the drive still works, the light issue only applies if i try diffent power leads which i have done. as for the poliarity ill have to check again but, i tryed with a battery and only one way worked. so i did it the same when i connected the usb power lead